Privacy is a known problem in communication, in particular in wireless communication. Devices communicating wirelessly provide a unique identification, such as an address, in the process of setting up a connection. This unique identification allows others to track and trace these devices, which may compromise privacy.
A way of preventing the transmission of a unique address is to have a random address for each connection, or to have a resolvable private address. A resolvable private address is an address that is generated with at least a secret shared between the devices. A standard using resolvable private addresses is the Bluetooth v4.0, also known as Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) or Bluetooth smart.
The Bluetooth Low Energy standard describes pairing: setting up a connection between a central device and a peripheral device. A disadvantage of this BLE technology is that each device receiving a resolvable private address should use the shared secret of each known device to determine whether the connecting device is a known device. This involves a considerable amount of computing, which in turn requires a considerable amount of energy. In portable devices, the available amount of energy is typically limited.
The figures are purely diagrammatic and not drawn to scale. In the figures, elements which correspond to elements already described may have the same reference numerals.